The Aliens Are Coming. Maybe.

I had one of 'those' dreams last night. If I said the preceding sentence to my family members, they would know exactly what I was talking about. 'Those' dreams, in my case, invariably means dreaming about alien invasions of earth. I have been having these dreams for decades.

I find dreams to be immensely entertaining, even the really, really, scary ones. I lose myself in the action, much like suddenly finding myself in the middle of a movie shoot, and try to make the best of the situation, whatever that might be. To me, it is always about trying to figure out what is going on, then finding a way to keep myself and/or my family safe. These dreams , generally, are filled with lots of action.

The alien invasion dreams are unique though, different from all the others. They all start out in much the same way. I look up into the sky and notice something unusual in the distance. It comes closer, and I realize that it is not of this world, either because it is completely different from anything else I have ever seen or is some sort of weird adaption of something I might have seen here on earth.

The dreams are eerily silent. After I get a visual fix on the first object in the sky, others gradually appear. Each is different. I see them all in incredible detail, often to the point of seeing welding seams and individual rivets in the construction of spaceships or other objects in the sky. Soon, the sky is filled with hundreds of objects, all different, gliding by overhead, and as they get closer to my vantage point, dread starts to build in me. That is when my survival instinct kicks in and I begin to plan ways to thwart the invasion or sometimes simply to escape from immediate harm.

As I thought about my most recent dream on the drive to my office this morning, I realized, for the first time, that there appears to be a pattern in the dreams. The first dreams were of ships bearing troops, and the equivalent of what we might consider to be fighter planes if they were to appear from another galaxy. Successive dreams were of transportation vehicles designed to be used on earth, but of a construction from another world somewhere. One dream, for example, had hundreds of boats and ships of many different designs, all different from anything on earth, gliding in from space and landing on a huge body of water. Some crashed in the process, in a spectacular and quite unsettling fashion. There were also personal conveyances, things that might be akin to cars and pickup trucks by comparison. See the trend? Invasion, then settling in for the long haul, then what?

The trend continued in last night's dream. Floating high overhead, by the hundreds were many more vehicles from afar, many of which appeared to be farm machinery. The machinery was like nothing I have ever seen before, but I could tell that one particular example I focused on in the dream was some sort of combine. Now, it appears, our visitors are settling in for the long haul, and are preparing to raise food, perhaps things unknown here on earth and are bringing their own equipment to help with the task.

As I watched all this unfold in my dream, I was aware that someone, a male unknown to me, was standing beside me. He was afraid, and I told him, over and over again, in a measured and quiet voice, that everything was going to be fine, that he was not to panic, and that he should remain calm. He stayed beside me and appeared to try to do as I suggested.

As we stood, I became aware that individual aliens were dropping down out of the sky, silently, without any visible means of keeping them from falling and crashing to the ground. As they floated down towards us, I noticed that they were largely human in form but were thin and elongated. As I strained to see more detail of these individuals, small packets resembling plastic 'baggies' started falling from the sky. Each baggie held several small objects somewhat resembling those black 3" bolts that are often used in construction. The packets appeared to have been simply dumped overboard from the space craft above, and in keeping with our physical laws here on earth, plummeted to earth and landed with noticeable 'splat' sounds on the ground everywhere. Keeping from being bombarded by these objects became the main focus of the two of us watching this drama play itself out around us, and my preoccupation precluded my noticing anything more about the visitors from elsewhere, their conveyances, or anything else.

At this point, my son appeared beside me. He was a bit edgy but calm. He looked at me and I knew, without his saying a word, that he would be calm and focused, and that we would deal with the situation somehow and preserve our freedom. I certainly wouldn't want to be in a situation where some inter-galactic freak was in a position to tell me what to do. I get enough of that from bureaucrats and politicians and assorted busybodies here on earth. But you knew that I would feel that way, didn't you?

I have often expressed to my son that one of the most important things about surviving the human rat race was to keep your wits about you at all times and, most especially, to be calm when everyone around you is losing their composure. I think he has learned that lesson well.

One particular alien floated down towards us, and just as he got close enough to see in detail, I turned towards him and woke up. I didn't see what he looked like.

Damn. That would have been so cool, to see what my mind would have come up with as it painted a picture for me of our alien invader. It would have been the first time that I saw one of my dream aliens that close. Maybe in my next 'alien invasion' dream I will get to see one in more detail.

What do these dreams mean? Nothing. I have an overactive imagination. I have always dreamed in Technicolor and Panavision with THX sound thrown in for good measure. The dreams are fascinating to me, but they are dreams, nothing more. No portents of things to come. Still, I wonder. What about the dream that I had several years ago? I wrote about it, in a 'Dear Zachary' letter to my son, here.

Hmmm.